Fitzpatrick claims McCracken has his hands full ahead of rematch

PADDY Fitzpatrick says he would not want to be in the shoes of Carl Froch’s trainer Rob McCracken ahead of the British super fight with George Groves.

The Swindon-based trainer will be in the opposite corner to McCracken on May 31 when he hopes to guide his young charge Groves to victory against WBA and IBF super-middleweight champion Froch.

Groves stunned Froch in the pair’s first clash. He sent the champion to the canvas in the opening round and dominated the fight before being controversially stopped in round nine.

With the rematch confirmed last week, Fitzpatrick claims there is little his rival trainer can do to change Froch’s bad habits.

“I wouldn’t want to be in Rob McCracken’s shoes, not at all,” Fitzpatrick told the Swindon Advertiser.

“If I was in McCracken’s shoes I would say to Carl Froch ‘Okay you want to go back into this fight, you tell me what are we doing to do different?’ “I’m presuming they are going to be professional and discuss the last fight.

“So let’s imagine that conversation for a minute: ‘So coach what do I need to work on? What went wrong last time?’ ‘Well, he was too quick for you, he won all the exchanges for the most part, he hurt you repeatedly, he dropped you, his footwork was better and his jab was better, so we need to work on all those things but you were good in the championship rounds Carl, so we’ll do that again’.

“It is what it is, what can they do?”

Groves’ performance last time out shocked and impressed the boxing world and while Fitzpatrick predicts a much-improved effort from his boxer in the rematch, he doesn’t believe Froch can do anything differently.

“Do you know what I think they are going to?

“I think Rob McCracken is going to lie to him again and he is going to go in and train him the same way as he has trained him before.

“He’ll give him some verbal tips to try and keep him calm, some verbal tips to try and make him hang his hat on something positive.

“What else can he do? Carl is what he is.

“Rob Mcracken continuosly tells him in every fight ‘listen to me Carl, get your hands up, get under that jab’ but he never puts them up, he only puts them up to scratch his face and then puts them down again.

“So what is he going to tell him?

“Well now he is going into a fight where, yeah he won, but if you hang your gameplan on how he won the last fight then I probably think you should be called a fool.

“It’s one thing to do something foolish and another thing to think what he did in the last fight is enough.

“George and me sat down after the first fight and said ‘Okay this is what you did good, this is what you need to polish on, we done this one a bit too early, this one a bit too much’.

“We looked at the positives and the negatives and said ‘This is what we need, that is our foundation to start the next camp’. We started doing that two weeks before Christmas.

“If we hadn’t done that then we’d be pretty unprofessional and just saying that fight didn’t count so let’s just get ready for the next one.

“I believe I know what we have with Carl.

“I believe anyone who watches Carl knows what they have got with Carl.

“They have a hell of a warrior who will bite down on his mouthpiece and go until he can’t, scrap until the wheels come off but that is not enough to win a fight.”

Comments (1)

“They have a hell of a warrior who will bite down on his mouthpiece and go until he can’t, scrap until the wheels come off but that is not enough to win a fight.”

Its been good enough long enough, and i think froch will spark groves this time, just took it too easy in last fight.
Groves been whinging like a **** ever since.

“They have a hell of a warrior who will bite down on his mouthpiece and go until he can’t, scrap until the wheels come off but that is not enough to win a fight.”
Its been good enough long enough, and i think froch will spark groves this time, just took it too easy in last fight.
Groves been whinging like a **** ever since.Hearditallbefore